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Functional–Structural Plant Modeling Highlights How Diversity in Leaf Dimensions and Tillering Capability Could Promote the Efficiency of Wheat Cultivar Mixtures
- Source :
- Frontiers in Plant Science, Frontiers in Plant Science, Frontiers, 2021, 12, pp.734056. ⟨10.3389/fpls.2021.734056⟩, Frontiers in Plant Science, 2021, 12, pp.734056. ⟨10.3389/fpls.2021.734056⟩, Frontiers in Plant Science, Vol 12 (2021)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- HAL CCSD, 2021.
-
Abstract
- International audience; Increasing the cultivated diversity has been identified as a major leverage for the agroecological transition as it can help improve the resilience of low input cropping systems. For wheat, which is the most cultivated crop worldwide in terms of harvested area, the use of cultivar mixtures is spreading in several countries, but studies have seldom focused on establishing mixing rules based on plant architecture. Yet, the aerial architecture of plants and the overall canopy structure are critical for field performance as they greatly influence light interception, plant interactions and yield. The very high number of trait combinations in wheat mixtures makes it difficult to conduct experimentations on this issue, which is why a modeling approach appears to be an appropriate solution. In this study, we used WALTer, a functional structural plant model (FSPM), to simulate wheat cultivar mixtures and try to better understand how differences between cultivars in key traits of the aerial architecture influence mixture performance. We simulated balanced binary mixtures of cultivars differing for different critical plant traits: final height, leaf dimensions, leaf insertion angle and tillering capability. Our study highlights the impact of the leaf dimensions and the tillering capability on the performance of the simulated mixtures, which suggests that traits impacting the plants' leaf area index (LAI) have more influence on the performance of the stand than traits impacting the arrangement of the leaves. Our results show that the performance of mixtures is very variable depending on the values of the explored architectural traits. In particular, the best performances were achieved by mixing cultivars with different leaf dimensions and different tillering capability, which is in agreement with numerous studies linking the diversity of functional traits in plant communities to their productivity. However, some of the worst performances were also achieved by mixing varieties differing in their aerial architecture, which suggests that diversity is not a sufficient criterion to design efficient mixtures. Overall, these results highlight the importance of simulation-based explorations for establishing assembly rules to design efficient mixtures.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Canopy
[SDV.SA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Agricultural sciences
F08 - Systèmes et modes de culture
[SDV]Life Sciences [q-bio]
Plant Science
Agricultural engineering
Performance de culture
01 natural sciences
F50 - Anatomie et morphologie des plantes
SB1-1110
sensitivity analysis
Cultivar
functional traits
Original Research
Mathematics
2. Zero hunger
competition for light
Tallage
U10 - Informatique, mathématiques et statistiques
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
tillering plasticity
Anatomie végétale
Diversification
Trait
Interception
Assembly rules
Triticum aestivum
Crop
aerial architecture
variety mixture
[SDV.BV]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Vegetal Biology
Variété
Leaf area index
Morphologie végétale
Modélisation des cultures
Plant culture
15. Life on land
[INFO.INFO-MO]Computer Science [cs]/Modeling and Simulation
040103 agronomy & agriculture
0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
Cropping
010606 plant biology & botany
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1664462X
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Frontiers in Plant Science, Frontiers in Plant Science, Frontiers, 2021, 12, pp.734056. ⟨10.3389/fpls.2021.734056⟩, Frontiers in Plant Science, 2021, 12, pp.734056. ⟨10.3389/fpls.2021.734056⟩, Frontiers in Plant Science, Vol 12 (2021)
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1cd478bb3cfbade9e92e9903dae41a00